Michael Fassbender continues his escalation up the Hollywood hierarchy and he impress’s as the noble Quintus Dias. Fassbender shows vulnerability in his character as he is given what feels like an impossible task – charged with getting the surviving members of the ninth legion back behind Hadrian’s Wall and into Roman territory.

For most of you, your first introduction to Michael Fassbender was probably in “Brothers in Arms” or “Inglorious Bastards.” Seems that being a man in uniform suits Fassbender and here as Centurion Quintus Dais, he never looked better. Dynamic, forceful, powerful, he brings a confident life-threatening urgency and emotion to the performance that keeps you on the edge of your seat, making you hold your breath in fear for Dais. Brilliantly done. When I talked to Fassbender right after filming, he raved about the experience. “This was the hardest I have ever worked in a film, but the most fun I’ve ever had.” And although he “got to ride horses and play with swords”, Fassbender was very disgruntled that there were many stunts that Marshall wouldn’t let him do. “He gets a bit carried away sometime. He’s very enthusiastic. He wanted to jump off the cliff into the river. We literally had to hold him back because I’m sure he would have done it. He did everything else himself. He did go in the river and he was running topless through the snow. But we couldn’t let him jump off the cliff.”

Fassbender fits right in, too, thoroughly blotting out any bad memories of his brief appearance in this summer's Jonah Hex. He's perfect for this kind of movie; just like in Basterds he exhibits the winning ability to flow between "B-action" and "Oscar reel" and make it look easy.

Sam McCurdy’s photography of northern Britain’s dark landscapes is often breathtaking, Ilan Eshkeri’s score is generic, yet rousing, and Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) once again reminds us he deserves the lead role in just about everything.

Although the characters are all rather one-dimensional, they are very well acted – particularly the roles of the son of a gladiator Centurion, played by Michael Fassbender (last seen in “Inglorious Basterds”), and of Etain the Tracker, as played by Olga Kurylenko, who manages to be sensuous, mysterious, and frightening, all at the same time.

He is also thrilled to have enlisted Fassbender, the up-and-coming performer of 300, Hunger and Inglourious Basterds, for the lead role. “He’s incredibly dedicated and into his work,” says Marshall of Fassbender. “He’s with you 200% and he’s a consummate professional.”

Its not all bad though, just most of it, in the lead is the fantastic Michael Fassbender, playing the indestructible Roman Quintas Dias. Fassbender played the German film expert in Inglourious Basterds, and then burned through Fishtank. In this film he has to run shirtless with his hands tied through some snow, gets buried under a humungus pile of corpses, many without jaws, and later eats half digested moss straight out of a mooses guts. He will be a big star and better things await him. Hopefully after watching this better things await me too.

Among the ragtag band of macho bastards on the run, Michael Fassbender does the best work. An actor with an increasingly excellent portfolio, Fassbender proves an able action star and has clearly beefed up to play Dias, the bilingual son of a gladiator with a little more feeling than his cohorts.

http://www.nerdsociety.com/movie-review-centurion/The excellent and charismatic Michael Fassbender is the lead while the stunning and badass Olga Kurylengo is the Pict warrior who will stop at nothing to get revenge on the Romans who destroyed her life.

Centurion is essentially an ultraviolent chase picture directed for maximum gore and impact. The cast is strong (especially Fassbender, who deserves to be a star) and the movie is not to be missed for fans of historical action, minus the political “intrigue” that does nothing but make movies like Gladiator, Troy, and Kingdom of Heaven bloated and overlong.

Fassbender is a chameleon of an actor who suffuses his leading men with great character traits.

As Quintus, he plays broad in the big scenes and is movingly specific in the small ones — an outsider who never aimed to lead, yet picking up the mantle when it's called for, he's the kind of hero we look for in movies like this.

All of that said, the acting is a marvel. Michael Fassbender is one of those actors I feel I was supposed to know about, but I never saw Hunger or Inglourious Basterds, the former because I never got around to it, the second because I don't like Tarantino very much (I know, I know, to each her own, especially when it comes to Holocaust movies, all right?). But he's just tremendous, from the moment he bursts on screen, running through the snow, his hands bound, his bare chest gashed, on a race for his life. He's tender and violent, sometimes even simultaneously. Even when he's given cliche material to work with, there's a tremendous range of humanity playing across his face. It helps that he's got good supporters, and supporting is the word: this is a movie dominated by a single man, despite the presence of Dominic West, rough and tumble and honorable.

It helps that the cast is more than up to the task of drawing us headlong into this atmospheric world. First and foremost, Michael Fassbender is just plain badass in the lead role of Quintus. He has a quiet intensity that makes his character easy to root for and empathize with. I hadn't had a lot of previous exposure to Fassbender, but he just seems like one of those great, sort of underrated actors who is very believable as a period action hero. Centurion is a showcase for Fassbender's very obvious talent.

Michael Fassbender continues to show that he’s on his way to the A list with his performance here. He’s intense and suitably heroic in all the right ways. He definitely does fine work here, but with his recent performances in ‘Inglourious Basterds’ and ‘Fish Tank’, that’s expected at this point.

Major Hollywood star in the waiting Michael Fassbender (played the German-impersonating British Lieutentant in Inglourious Basterds) is undoubtedly the standout among the acting contingent. As the titular soldier, Fassbender makes for a charismatic leading man that convinces in both the physical and dramatic elements of the role. I eagerly wait to see what he does as the young Magneto in the upcoming X-Men prequel.